


First Blood

by lusteralliance



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Male My Unit | Byleth, i was very angry when i wrote this so this was to cool myself down, jeralt i respect Only You
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-08-07
Packaged: 2020-08-11 06:56:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20149516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lusteralliance/pseuds/lusteralliance
Summary: Jeralt tries to comfort Byleth after he takes his first life.





	First Blood

**Author's Note:**

> ghGHGHGHG

Jeralt knocked on his child’s bedroom door, and he received no answer.

He stared at his feet, guilt and anxiety clashing in his head. He knocked again, then heard a tiny sob come through the door.

Just as he had feared.

Jeralt turned the knob and peered into the dark, what was left of the setting sun’s light filtering through the lilac curtains. There was a bundle of dark blue blanket on the cot by the window, and Jeralt could see tufts of dark hair poking out of one side.

“Byleth,” Jeralt murmured.

“Go way,” came his child’s deadened whimper. Jeralt closed the door behind him after he slipped into the darkening room, taking in a sharp breath. He took a hesitant step forward, then another and another until he reached Byleth’s bed. He knelt before it and placed a careful hand against his child’s hair.

Byleth cried out and writhed away from his father, burying himself deeper into the covers as he dissolved into muffled tears. Jeralt squeezed his eyes shut, curling his fingers against his palm into a tight fist on Byleth’s pillow.

“Byleth, please...talk to me. I’m here to listen. I’m here to help.”

Jeralt listened to his child’s sniffles and hiccups, his heart twisting. Byleth was only fifteen. He was too young, too young to have felt blood on his fingertips, too young to be a murderer.

“Byleth. I’m here.”

Jeralt slowly opened his eyes, and he saw that his child’s hair was visible once more under the blankets. He didn’t reach to stroke it, but he relaxed his hand and placed it by Byleth’s pillow.

He smiled just a little when Byleth’s own hand, trembling, delicate, slipped out of his cocoon of blankets to hold Jeralt’s.

“Everything’s going to be all right,” Jeralt whispered.

“How—” Byleth coughed and sniffled “—how do you lie so easy…?”

Jeralt flinched and squeezed Byleth’s hand. His slender fingers, so much like his mother’s, were wet with tears, stained with blood that would never truly be washed away. The first kill would be the hardest; so was the law of mercenaries.

“Teach me to lie like you...teach me to lie so I can tell you I’m okay….” Byleth pushed his face halfway out from under his blankets, his dark blue eyes cloudy and shining with tears. Jeralt reached out with his other hand to wipe away the tears pooling on Byleth’s lashes, and Byleth closed his eyes, sniffling, and let his father dry his eyes with the side of his thumb.

“I’m not lying, Byleth. You know I’d never lie to you.”

“Then why did you say the mission would be easy…? Why did you say that it’d be over in just a heartbeat?” Byleth pulled his arm out of his blankets and wiped his eyes on the sleeve of his sleeping clothes, which meant Jeralt hadn’t done a good job himself. “You said it would be quick. But every time I close my eyes I see that poor man....”

Jeralt eased him into a sitting position, an arm around his child’s shoulders. The man Byleth spoke of had been a bandit, one who had gone village to village, hut to hut, person to person, stealing and using and doing whatever he liked. But Jeralt knew his child would not believe him. To Byleth, the man he killed did not deserve his fate, and it would remain so until the end of times.

Byleth stared into space, and then his lip started to tremble again. He clung tightly to Jeralt’s hand, letting out another faint sob.

“And—and—their blood...and their—” Byleth shook his head vigorously, and he kicked at the blankets draped over his legs as he gave a distressed whimper. 

Jeralt’s eyes stung; he never imagined it would hurt this much. Byleth was strong—he could fell a buck with an arrow and wrestle it to the ground before slitting its throat. He could run from the mouth of the creek to the river it joined to in just an afternoon. He could do so much, more than Jeralt could at his age. But he was still a child.

“Byleth, will you let me tell you a story?”

Byleth looked up at him, half angry, half frightened. He nodded.

“Many years ago, there was a young man that I knew very well who had just become a mercenary. He was inexperienced, but he was desperate. He needed money, and he was good with a blade; it all added up.

“He joined up with a band of wandering mercenaries, the ones I told you about when you were little. They were brash and knew their way around the country, and they trained him to be a killer. A murderer. And he didn’t know it until it was too late.

“They brought him to a village and told him to follow along, and they started to slaughter the wealthy folk and take their money. And that young man, he slew and slew. His first kill was a sick little girl.”

Jeralt had to pause here, as a lump had formed in his throat, choking out his next words. He remembered the girl like he had seen her yesterday. The young man was him, of course, and the slaughter of that poor girl was the first of his vices. Her wails of terror and her squeals of shock when she saw her own blood, gushing out the slit in her stomach—they echoed in Jeralt’s head like the dull ring of an old bell.

“What happened next, Papa?” Byleth whispered. His deep blue eyes were ruminative, solemn yet curious. His gaze was those of an aged scholar, but his face and his soft voice were that of a frightened child.

Jeralt cleared his throat, nodding his head. “Well, he...he realized that these mercenaries were not mercenaries. They were evildoers; they killed for fun, not for survival. So he struck out on his own, and he vowed only ever to kill if it was absolutely necessary.”

Byleth stared at him, his eyes still puffy from tears. Jeralt found himself unable to meet his child’s gaze as the sun’s pinkish rays disappeared behind the mountains beyond their home. Then, Byleth piped up. “And if it payed well?”

Jeralt glanced up at him, and he was not smiling. But there was a glimmer in his blue eyes that told Jeralt that he understood, and that everything would be all right.

Jeralt nodded, the beginnings of a grin curling the edge of his lip. “Yes.” He patted Byleth’s back. “But you don’t have to worry about that. I hope someday you’ll find a different way to earn a living. Maybe I might enroll you into the Officer’s Academy—what do you say?”

Byleth shook his head. “No...I want to stay with you.”

Jeralt blinked. “What?”

“I want to stay with you, Papa.”

“But...you aren’t made for this kind of work, Byleth. This was already really tough on you. And it was tough on me, too, watching you beat yourself up like this.”

Byleth narrowed his eyes, once flowing with tears, and he shook his head. “No one’s ‘made for’ anything. I want to be stronger...I want to get better.”

Before Jeralt could say anything in return, Byleth added, softly, “Besides...all this stuff...that man you told me about, he went through it, too. He went through worse—he had to kill a little girl. He led this kind of life, and look at what happened to him.” Jeralt’s eyes widened when Byleth took a deep breath, then straightened and met his gaze.

“He...he became the bravest man I ever knew.”

Father and child stared at each other for a long time until Jeralt’s vision started to blur, and he pulled Byleth into a bear hug. Byleth pressed his face against his father’s shoulder, holding onto him tightly.

“I’m the _only_ man you ever knew, kid,” Jeralt spluttered, and Byleth only clung to him with more determination, like a burr deep in a wolf’s pelt.

“I want to be as brave as you, Papa.”

“You already are.”

“I’ll be better than I am now.”

“I know.”

“I’ll be stronger.”

“I know.”

“I’ll be okay.”

“I know.”

“I’m not lying.”

Jeralt had never cried this hard in his life. He nodded into his child’s hair, kissing his forehead and looking fondly down at him. Byleth smiled back up at his father.

“I know, Byleth.”

**Author's Note:**

> byleth: says 'papa'  
me (also jeralt): melts like butter


End file.
